A new chart template starts empty, and the questions you ask every new patient are not ones you want to type in one field at a time. Starter fields are four ready-made sets you can drop onto a chart in a click, then change to suit how you work.
Where to find them
Open Settings → Charting, find Chart templates, and edit a chart. Above the field list, open Add starter fields. Each set is listed with a one-line description and an Add button. The sets are for your own fields on the chart; the built-in sections such as Points and Pulse are added separately, as covered in a chart for each service.
What is in each set
- Ten Questions: fourteen fields at half width, so they sit two to a row. Energy, Body temperature, Sweating, Sleep, Appetite & diet, Thirst, Digestion, Chest area, Head, eyes, ears, nose & throat, Pain, Elimination (stool & urine) and Emotions are short text. Last menstrual period (LMP) is a date and Menstrual cycle is short text. Each has a tooltip with example prompts, such as 'Falling asleep, waking, dreams, hours' for Sleep, so the label stays the question.
- Safety screen: three yes or no fields, On blood thinners, Pregnant or possibly pregnant, and Pacemaker or implanted device, followed by a full-width Safety notes box.
- Problem list: one repeating group, Problem list, where each entry has a Complaint, a Score and Notes.
- SOAP note: four full-width long text fields, Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan, each with a short placeholder.
Take the whole set or only some of it. The set is plain fields, so delete what you never ask. If you don't ask about the menstrual cycle, remove those two fields and leave the other twelve.
A copy you own
Adding a set copies its fields onto that chart. There is no link back to the starter, so editing or deleting a field on your chart never changes the set, and nothing in a starter set is locked. Open any field to change its label, type, hint, tooltip, width or default value, as described in chart field settings, or move it up or down the list. The Chart map beside the list shows the result as you go.
A set is matched by field label, ignoring capitals. If the chart already has a field called Sleep, adding Ten Questions skips that one and adds the rest. When every field of a set is already on the chart, its button reads Added and is disabled. Add the same set twice and nothing is duplicated.
Starter fields, protocols and templates
A starter set decides which questions a chart asks. It fills in no answers. To save a set of answers, such as the points and pattern you use for a common complaint, use a protocol.